GOOD

Geoff Boycott’s commentary: The man with one of the best nicknames going around - GLY - was on fire during the second one-dayer in Abu Dhabi. Tony Greig reported back to Boycs that he had been doing some research into the one-day career of Son of Rodney, and Redmond’s average and strike rate were commensurate with that of Boycott. A slight pause then an outraged Boycott retorted: “I’m a better blinking player than ‘im.” Greig took that on the chin and replied: “That’s what I wanted you to say.” To which Boycott ended the conversation: “Well you’re dead right too.” Wonderful stuff from the obstinate barnacle known as the Greatest Living Yorkshireman.

The Pakistani fans’ penchant for dressing up: They don’t have many fancy dress shops in Abu Dhabi (unlike Headingley and Wellington, for example) so the fans are like the Macgyvers of dress-up: they just make do with whatever they can find. Cardboard, scissors, coloured pens, sheets, office paper, stuffed toys and they are away.

Half-time entertainment: Both the at-game entertainment, and the Sky coverage were spot on. At the game, punters were treated to a kids’ cricket match. Perfect - all the marketing bollocks in the world can’t hide the fact that people at a cricket game like seeing cricket played. Little kids running each other out, dropping catches, bursting into tears, and smashing the ball to all parts of the oval is a sure-fire recipe for success. Meanwhile, back in the lounge, it was The Crowd Goes Wild or as we call it The Mull Show. Sometimes, Sky does some weird things here and puts on drag racing, plane flying, waterskiing or some other non-sport drivel that doesn’t even have a ball involved. TCGW is a much more appropriate and less sleep-inducing option.

Brendon McCullum: His mighty 131 from 129 balls was a brilliant innings, reminiscent of the Nathan Astle method of compiling a one-day hundred. Ends a sequence of scores of 1, 18, 26, 41, 0, 43, 36, 33, 2, 0, 71, 77, 2, 14, 3, 44, 46, 48, 17, 0 and 21 so far this year. I don’t subscribe to the view of Craig Cumming that eight failures is OK if he wins us one or two games out Read more…

Administrator PAK vs NZ, UAE abdul razzaq, Abu Dhabi, Blogs.CMDN.com, Brendon McCullum, Chris Gayle, Craig Cumming, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Geoff Boycott, Neil Broom, New Zealand, Pakistan, Shahid Afridi, Sheikh Zayed Stadium, Sky, Tony Greig, UAE

After the dreadful attack on New Zealand’s current cricketing nemesis - Sri Lanka - in Lahore, the United Arab Emirates made strides toward a much more significant position in the world of cricket. Earlier this year The Guardian even went as far as saying: “The Gulf states could become a new home for cricket.” Seen as a neutral safehouse for the sport, Dubai is already home to the ICC’s headquarters and, along with nearby Abu Dhabi and Sharjah, looks set to become a venue of choice for any and all relocated international cricketing fixtures. But away from the piles of UAE dirhams (aka “sheikh cash”), there is an untelevised form of the game: the Middle East’s interpretation of BYC. Given the state of the terrain, it would be taking the mickey to describe it as “grassroots cricket” although in effect that’s what it is. The Beige Brigade’s Arabian Gulf ambassador went along for a frolic of backyard cricket, Abu Dhabi-style recently. Here is his report.

Basically the UAE has a massive population of Indian and Pakistani workers, mainly involved in construction and services such as drivers, tea boys, cleaners, and so on.

The drivers at work caught wind that I was a Kiwi and hit me up about my thoughts on the world’s best cricketer…which I told them was Jeetan Patel, closely followed by Grant Elliott. Blank response. However, I quickly made a lot of new friends when I corrected my mistake and mentioned the word “Tendulkar”.

One of them asked if I wanted to play cricket with them, and I agreed. I followed my acceptance up with some standard western cricket banter: “I’m going to tear you a new eye hole” and “I’m going to knock your block off” - that sort of thing. I was met with not one smile…and no retort. Odd.

Saturday morning gameday arrived. Jerry (our main driver) told me to meet him at a petrol station on the main road. I was instructed to follow him to the ground as apparently it was quite difficult to find. Easily the understatement of the year. Jerry proceeded to drive to the back blocks of Abu Dhabi…past the industrial estate and into a new development of villas, all unfinished Read more…

Administrator UAE Abu Dhabi, Blogs.CMDN.com, Cricket, Cricket Blogs, Dubai, Grant Elliott, ICC, Jeetan Patel, Kiwi, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, UAE, United Arab Emirates